In his classic song Summer Wages (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o43TMGS9MU4) , Ian Tyson tells of working the logs on the West Coast in his “slippery city shoes”, something he vowed he would never do again. That is, until he spent his summer wages on beer and hookers, and then had to do it again. I love Tyson’s song,…
A friend and fellow Canadian Association of Professional Speakers member, Nathalie Plamondon-Thomas (https://thinkyourself.com/) , recently wrote “Studies reveal that 85% of people suffer from a lack of self-confidence, while 70% admit to experiencing imposter syndrome.” What I’m sorry to report is that this applies, perhaps even more so, to professionals and entrepreneurs. You see it…
The gap between life as it is and life as we imagine it could be is what determines our contentment. This gap is also the most important motivator known to humankind, but also the most poorly understood. As a force for good, the gap drives us to learn, to improve, to risk, to endure, to…
You can’t say enough good things about Gary Keller’s book and principle The One Thing. Put simply, Keller says that to achieve success, you need to focus relentlessly on the “one thing that will make everything else easier or unnecessary.” Who can argue? Yet for many of us there is another “one thing”: the one…
The North American ten cent piece isn’t of much value any more, but it holds a place in our culture, nonetheless. “It’s your dime!” means that since you paid for the call, you have the floor. Not that there are many phone booths left, and a dime wouldn’t do you any good if you could…
Canada has not been attacked by foreign forces in over two hundred years. Our military engagements have been in defence of friends and allies, although certainly in colonial days not without considerable coercion. In the cause of freedom, Canadians have fought with valour and distinction, laying down their lives in defence of allies. Or did…
You’d hardly think so, but being too good at too many things is actually too much, at least in many cases. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, Supergiftedness can actually produce mediocrity. Surprised? Let’s think about it. We all know them and envy them – the golden children who excel at everything. Academics? Poof! High nineties…
It’s a generally accepted notion that we go into business or into a profession to make a lot of money. But in fact most very financially successful professionals and entrepreneurs will tell you, looking back over a lifetime, that it’s not about the money. Somehow, that came as a byproduct. Almost all highly successful entrepreneurs…
It was 1956, a cold December day in Memphis, Tennessee when four young men got together to jam in a studio, just horsing around and having fun. All from dirt-poor Southern families, all in the very early stages of their careers, some still holding down “day jobs”, and none of them professionally trained. Elvis Presley,…
(Be sure first to read last week’s Briefing “The Million Dollar Quartets”) So why do some groupings turn into successful partnerships, and some don’t? There must be a thousand ways of looking at that question, but here we’ll use the lens of Giftings and Alignment. Let’s start with definitions. Giftedness is one’s package of innate…